What’s the Best Bible Translation for Kids?

There are dozens of English Bible translations available, but what’s the best Bible translation for kids? One major factor to consider is your child’s reading level.

Recently, we were shopping for Bibles for one of our kids. Can we say, overwhelm?

There are so. many. options.

What helped us narrow down our options was considering several important factors…

Longevity: Ideally we wanted a Bible he could read over and over for years, not just a Bible that was suitable for one or two years of his life.

Reading Level: At the same time, we didn’t want to buy him a 12th-grade-reading-level Bible when he was only in 4rd grade. We wanted him to enjoy reading it and be able to understand it.

Features: Reading level aside, Bibles come with all kinds of “features” these days: references, concordances, study notes, character highlights, etc. We wanted features that would be helpful to his growth in reading the Bible on his own.

Here’s how we choose the right Bible translation for our kids…

Start with Audio Bibles

Kids don’t just pop out of the womb reading, so we start by using audio Bibles and of course fantastic read-aloud story Bibles with our pre-readers.

Using audio Bibles can be an engaging way to hear the Word of God read aloud, especially for kids who aren’t reading or not strong readers.

It’s important to note that the Bible was written in a largely oral culture, so it was written in order to be read aloud. The public reading of Scripture was a primary way God’s people were expected to take the Bible into their minds.

Abridged Bibles for Early Readers

As for reading the Bible themselves, we’ve often not started our kids on complete Bible translations but abridgedBibles. This is a great way to help them start getting in the habit of reading just a little something for their personal devotional time without being overwhelmed.

What are Good “Features” to Look For?

As kids get older and become more comfortable reading the Bible for themselves, there are several features that can be helpful.

👍🏼👍🏼 Reference Bibles

Reference Bibles are Bibles with reference notes, usually in a separate column, that show how different parts of the Bible connect thematically. This is great for teaching kids to see connections between one book and another.

👍🏼👍🏼 Journaling Bibles

If you want your kids to be able to mark up their Bibles with notes, journaling Bibles can be very helpful. Supplied with large margins for note-taking, journaling Bibles encourage kids to engage with the text. They can write sermon notes (always good for active listening at church), notes from their own studies, or even personal dates of importance when God opened their eyes to important truths.

The coloring may, however, be a distraction from the real value of the book: the inspired words they are meant to read.

👍🏼👎🏼 Study Notes

Study notes can be very helpful: just make sure you trust the authors.

Sometimes study notes are pretty bare-bone: they just help the reader to know unfamiliar names, places, dates in history, weights and measures, etc. Other times study notes act more like rich commentaries. Be sure when you get a study Bible to check who wrote the notes: are they names of Bible teachers you know and trust?

👎🏼👎🏼 Red Letters

Red Letter Bibles set apart the words spoken by Jesus with red text. Using red ink in Bibles goes back to the middle ages, but wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that the practice was used to highlight the words of Christ.

The practice became popular especially with King James Bibles because that translation doesn’t supply quotation marks. This makes it easier to spot when Jesus is speaking.

While there’s not necessarily anything wrong with this practice, the major drawback is that it gives the subtle impression that those words are somehow more important or even more “inspired” than the text written in black. This isn’t the impression we want to give our kids.

Which Bibles have you purchased for your kids? What features do you look for?

About Luke Gilkerson

Luke Gilkerson and his wife Trisha are the primary authors of IntoxicatedOnLife.com. For 5 years, Luke worked as a Campus Minister at the University of Toledo. Following this, he worked as the Educational Resource Manager at Covenant Eyes, a company dedicated to protecting eyes and minds from harmful sexual content online. Luke has a BA in Philosophy and an MA in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary. He is the author of several family Bible studies, including The Talk: 7 Lessons to Introduce Your Child to Biblical Sexuality.

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5 Comments

We use the NKJV as the “default” translation in our house, and every one of our “newbie” readers has done fine with it. (With a little guidance through the harder words, like Nebuchadnezzar. ‘Cause let’s face it, what English speaker naturally knows how to read Nebuchadnezzar? lol) I have 5- and 7-year-olds reading from it right now, and begging to be the ones to read the evening’s passage during family worship.

I always get my younger readers *large print*, though, because that’s easier for them to follow along with.

My 9 year old loves reading books like Big Nate, which are in comic book format. So I bought him the Action Bible. It is comic book format. It really brought the Christmas Story to life for him when we read it in the Amplified Bible, and then the Action Bible. I want him to be interested in it and enjoy reading it on his own. It has definitely helped.